Meant to Be Broken
by CryOnMyShoulder
Summary: She could never take another life. But promises were meant to be broken. Sara Sidle fic.


**Title: **Meant to Be Broken  
**Author: **Ktothelo  
**Fandom: **CSI - Sara Sidle  
**Characters:** Sara Sidle  
**Prompt:** Not Enough  
**Rating: **PG  
**Summary:** She could never take another life. But promises were meant to be broken.  
**Author's Notes:** This was originally written for the fanfic100 challenge on Livejournal, thus the prompt. I haven't written anything in well over a year, so I'm terribly out of practice. No romance in this one, it features Sara, and Sara alone. And as always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

- - - - -

She could never take another life.

But promises were meant to be broken.

She'd found herself curled in a ball on her bed that evening, gently rocking herself back and forth as she stared at the reflection of the bathroom mirror on her wall. She hadn't moved from that spot in hours, vaguely recalling her earlier actions of arriving home, tossing her purse on the floor and falling into the unmade bed, never bothering to remove her shoes. At some point she'd fallen asleep, waking nearly 3 hours later to the sound of her alarm clock buzzing, signaling the start of a routine that most people completed at 6am, not 6pm.

Work was the farthest thing from her mind that night as she sat up and pulled her sweat soaked t-shirt over her head, discarding it on the floor besides her. Barely glancing at the mess of her bed or the smell coming from her body after hours of cold sweats, she made the short walk to her freezer and grabbed the bottle of tequila she'd stashed in there months before. Most of the time she'd take the time to cut a lime and use a shot glass, but on that night, swigging from the glass bottle was good enough for her. Her eyes shut as the strong liquor burned her throat and mouth, but she reveled in the 2 short seconds of warmth as the burning effect disappaited.

Capping the bottle, Sara took hold of it and a pill bottle she had left on the counter earlier and dropped her aching body onto her couch. She'd quickly swallowed two of the pills, reading over the label on the bottle before setting it on her coffee table, besides the tequila. Grabbing the phone from the arm of the couch, she punched in the familiar 7 digit code for Grissom's cell phone, and placed one hand on her abdomen as she quietly whimpered in pain.

She kept her eyes shut as she heard him pick up, taking a deep breath to compose herself, not wanting him to suspect anything.

_"I need to take the night off."_

She managed another swig of Tequila as he rambled on about her never taking a sick day, something she knew was coming.

_"Grissom, I'm fine. I took two Advil, it's just a headache. I'm gonna sleep it off."_

When had she become so good at lying?

_"No. No. Yes, I'll be in tomorrow. Yes. Bye."_

Sara had never wished so hard for a headache.

It was another 20 minutes before she'd again opened her eyes, continuing to hold her adomen with her left hand. Feeling around the coffee table, she wrapped her free fingers around the cardboard carton and ripped the plastic seal from it before settling the long, slim cigarette between her lips. The first drag went down as smooth as it had back when she'd been a pack a day smoker. She didn't cough, feel light headed, or gag. By the third drag she began to question why she'd quit in the first place. Sure, she knew the health risks, but nothing was as satisfying as a cigarette. Except maybe booze.

She had hit rock bottom in only 5 days, and she knew it.

She'd never be good enough, by any standards.

Especially her own.

She'd witnessed her mother murder her father when she was 11 and always swore to herself that she'd do right. She'd gotten a full ride to Harvard, despite the incredible odds against her as a child in the system. From there it was Berkely, and then onto her first placement as a CSI in San Francsico which led to Las Vegas thanks to Grissom. Yet, that still wasn't enough.

She'd poured her heart and soul into her courses at Harvard, achieving a nearly perfect academic transcript. Yet she still silently beat herself up over the one European History course that she'd recieved a B+ in, trying to convince herself that she could have studied harder and neglected the small social life she had, it would have been an A. And in San Francsico, there'd been the CSI 3 position she was overly qualified for, yet didn't recieve. It didn't matter that seniority had been the deciding factor, she believed if she had put in more time, the position would have been hers.

Though in her current state, Sara didn't much care about any of her academic and professional successes and pitfalls. With each swig of tequila and drag of a cigarette, all she saw was herself, the woman she had slowly begun to hate.

There'd been blood everywhere, 3 dead kids on the floor, and 2 more in the basement. She remembered the pile of wrestling figures that sat between the three boys, one wrapped in the youngest boys hand. She'd felt her heart drop as she entered the basement and found the two girls undressed, arms wrapped around each other. She remembered Greg running for the street as he vomited. She remembered the tears as they slid down Catherine's cheek and the anger in both Nick and Warrick as they returned to the lab. She'd never forget that case.

She'd stopped at the first bar she saw after shift. On that night, Sara didn't care at all what she drank, as long as it contained plently of alcohol. After 3 or 4 shots all she could remember was that a man sat down next to her, and within the hour they were back at her place, in her bed. By the time she'd woken up and spent a half hour laying on her bathroom floor, she'd caught the figure of a man leaving her bedroom, his shirt hanging from his right hand. If he'd kept going, she'd never have known who he was, and honestly, that would have been ok.

Leave it to Hank to hang around half of the morning, having the balls to show his face.

That morning she'd nearly convinced herself that there was a murder gene.

She'd never seen a man run so fast, dodging the hardcover book that flew by his head.

She lit another cigarette as she flipped mindlessly through the TV channels, settling on _Will & Grace_. She allowed herself to pay attention for a few minutes before turning her focus to the two sheets of pink paper that sat across the table. There were enough instructions on them to keep someone busy for days on end, or so it seemed to her. She didn't care about them, all she wanted was the pain to go away.

It was in the women's restroom in the lab that she recieved the news she'd been dreading for 2 days. And as that pink line appeared, Sara no longer cared about the front she felt she had to put up around people. She'd dropped the plastic stick to the floor as she brought her hands to her forehead, bursting into tears. Her brown hair fell around her face, small portions slowly becoming saturated with her tears and sticking to her skin. It was like she couldn't breathe.

For someone supposedly so smart, how had she been so stupid?

"I'm sorry," she whispered into the darkness as she shut the TV off and abandoned her tequila.

She could never take another life.

Promises, they're not enough.

She wasn't enough.

- - - - -

5/10/06


End file.
